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April 22, 2012

Okay, comix return. Hopefully the length of this partly makes up for the preceding absence, for which it was partly responsible (paradox!!).

And thanks again for the consistently amazing support over the past five years, and i’m happy to finally get year six going (and the march to comic #200). And don’t worry, they won’t all be 3000 words and aggressively unfunny (although at least a couple more of them probably will be, knowing me).

-Wr

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This entry was posted on April 22, 2012 at 12:17 am and is filed under Subnormality.

The art is absolutely stunning. I especially like the first panel on the third page (the transparent light).

I hope I’ve understood this at least partially – does the colour change at the end to red signify that the old version of the world (which only got up to yellow) has been overwritten? I.e. the futuristic people erased themselves entirely out of history except for the time traveller they sent back?

Uff, amazing stuff as always… and to those proud few who ‘figured it out’ halfway through, you’ve missed the point completely- it’s not about knowing how it ends but about the act of storytelling itself… then again, if you’re the type to get your kicks predicting that the protagonist in ‘the passion’ eventually dies, kick away friends

Completely agree. We are never told what ideas are being spread, but how they manage to do so is the central idea of the comic – an interesting viewpoint on the meme theory, in its original sense. The seemingly predictable plot twist, though enjoyable, is just a device to keep the flow of the story, in my humble opinion

As for the artwork, not much to say that hasn’t been said yet… classic, eerie-style Subnormality. At times I was expecting this to be one of those animated GIFs used for scare pranks, such was the level of tension.

Beautiful. And I especially love the comments that seem disappointed that this story has been told before. In a nice, vivid way they reflect back on one of the main themes here . . . the misunderstandings people have about storytelling and authorship and the sculpting of truth or tales by the “network”. It’s like those reactions add an extra layer to your art-work.

Very well done. I can understand that some people here use the word ‘predictable’ in terms of plot, but the ‘great twist’ is not the point here, I think. The whole thing becomes beautiful because of the conclusions he draws at the end.

I really like the idea here. There’s something to be said about the predictable nature of the story actually enriching the point of the story told. A better wordsmith than I could probably clarify what I’m after, but an interesting story about stories.

Agreed, who He is isn’t the point. But I take the appearance of a ringed moon in the sky as a suggestion that this isn’t intended to be Earth.

On that score, this reminds me a bit of Arbre in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.

I do have a hard-to-express disquiet with this episode’s stirring conclusion, though. It strikes me as having the flavor of navel-gazing, “if it’s great or terrible it’s because we (mankind) made it so”.

In constrast, Stephenson’s Anathem focuses on the ideas like the Pythagorean Theorem, consistently given an alien name in the novel, to stress the Platonic notion that some ideas are consistent and discoverable, but uninventable. It’s the difference between “that tune’s great, and a credit to the species that composed it” and “isn’t it awesome that we live in a world where musical notes exist as things we can reproduce and rearrange”?

Despite of it appearing at least twice in this comic, no one has commented why Saturn (or some planet with rings) can be seen in the sky.
I think this comic takes place on Titan.
The slowly changing colors might be due to the slow changes in Titan’s atmosphere (clouds or something. uh.. I wikipedia’d it.)

But then again, it can be any other planet anywhere… and I guess that is the point. WR has kept this comic so general, that it cannot be associated with any place on Earth. The only common factor is that it is about humans, a certain religious philosophy and human nature…

writing that I just realize that I’m stating the obvious because 95% of subnormality comics are about human nature….

Not trying to demystify anything in this story, just adding food for thought…

Wouldn’t Saturn look a lot bigger than that from Titan? Anyway, good eye as I didn’t notice it at all until you pointed it out. Since then I saw it at least 3 times though.
Perhaps I shall look for more now

I fully agree that it needs to happen, and the stories lie in wait. No time right now though. When subnormality one day ends, if i have the incredible fortune to be able to continue as an artist then graphic novels are the plan– all of them sci-fi.

That was so incredible.
It makes me so glad when I see people like Winston Rowntree. Though it’s becoming an overused phrase, saying that this gives me hope for the human race really sums it up as best I know how. Knowing that there are people out there so infinitely smarter than me gives me hope in the great heights humanity may someday reach that I can’t even begin imagine yet.
Thank you.

Honestly, I loved the big twist, and didn’t see it coming at all. No, not the whole “the time-traveller is HIM!” bit, but the shape of the symbol and the layout of the frames. Seeing it in pure yellow made it clear that this is a story being told about stories being told. And in the completion the frame changes. The medium is quite deliberately the message, or at least part thereof.

Maybe the holy symbol came from him talking to his friends about the holes in his doorway, and how he should really patch them up, but see, in the afternoon they let in sunlight to make shadow puppets for his family with. Which reminds him of this time he and his wife were…

I really love these longer story comics, especially when they don’t require horizontal scrolling. My favorite was the one about the oil planet, but this was fantastic too. The only problem with these time-circle stories isn’t the time travel, but that self causation is even less probable than time machines. Kind of requires that the character be both the chicken and the egg. But that wasn’t the point of the story, so I’m not complaining.

Imagine! You certainly did Winston, with an awe-inspiring version of a tale oft told,
I like how the panels on most pages form His symbol, and the ringed planet shows that this is happening on another world, and so cannot be related to any earthly religion.

Yeah, I know from the very beggining that He was he. But I know you, WR, and I love you, and I knew you would deliver something more. The last panel, the last words, they take me by surprise and just hit something inside me. I cried of pure joy. So thank you. You are a wise man and I am happy to have stumbled upon your comic all those years ago. If youe ver come to Mexico (or want to come visit!) let me know.

I follow your comic now since Nr. 84. I must thank you very much for this wonderful piece of art. You manage to convey basic truths in a way other comics/graphic novels fail to do (even while tring hard) over thousands of pages. I salute you and thank you very much

From the perspective of a Catholic (and assuming I’ve interpreted this latest piece correctly), I think this is the most tactful, polite, and respectful way anyone on the internet has ever told me they aren’t Christian as well. Thank you for your respect, Winston, as well as for your powerfully imaginative works.

With the combination of commissions, work for Cracked, donations, and poster sales, i can often cover the rent (and thanks So Much to anyone who continues to support the comix in such a manner), but it’s not quite at the level of Making a Living yet (i do apply for arts grants, but i never get any, in part i think because in the public eye comic strips=frivolous. Which is why i hate non-bill-watterson newspaper-style comix so much, for making that the milieu over what it was in the early 20th century). My current lot is, however, a ludicrous upgrade over the days of five years ago when i was selling $2.00 zines and mowing lawns full time, so i’m unendingly grateful for this opportunity. I DO work full time as an artist (as is necessary because my work takes approximately Forever to finish), and the livin’s meagre compared to a lot of people in western society i guess, but i am most assuredly where i want to be.

Awesome. Worth the wait. Doesn’t matter that I saw where it was going it was totally awesome all the way through. I love the unique use of space and panels and the way that scrolling added a nice pacing in between panels. Great little story. Kind of heart-warming/hear-wrenching

If you do that at least go to the source: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp
“.. spoilers helped only when presented in advance, outside of the piece. When the researchers inserted a spoiler directly into a story, it didn’t go over quite as well.
Great comic regardless, underwhelming perhaps, until the notion of the “founders” pops up the second time because essentially they are God here & that did get me thinking a little. Always have issues with your work though, so nothing new; will still be back every other week & I’m not sure which I’m anticipating more GTAV or Captain Estar gets rebuffed again, at least from those sketches Peace.
p.s GTA is big deal to me

Wow. Just wow.
Reading this comic has been a wonderful journey, even though the thought everything may be of human origin scares me a bit. I wouldn’t call myself religious, but the existence of a little bit of “higher power” helps me not to feel purposeless.
And the fact that, despite my “beliefs”, I found this comic that moving and wonderful says all abaout your storytelling talent.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

At first i was put off by the early realization of where the story was going, but it soon became clear that the “grandfather paradox” was not a secret to be kept but instead it was part of the basis of the story. In the end, and maybe being my on interpretation, i loved how the story portrayed the character as the big fingernail that came to scratch the scratch & sniff book that is humanity, not bringing enlightment, but instead helping it surface.

Wow… When I saw there was a new comic I grinned and when I saw it was long my eyes misted and I cheered, but when I had finished it? I cried a little. Winston, in my personal opinion, this is the best epic you have crafted to date. thanks.

Truly, we live in an unjust world, for the name of Rowntree is not shouted from every rooftop. Or not.

Is there any chance that some kind of clickable thumbnail index for the available prints might materialize? I feel an urgent need to throw money at you, but I am constantly paralyzed by indecision, especially since reading and re-reading and re-re-reading all the comics for which prints are available is such a time-consuming exercise.

Thank you Winston
I find it funny that someone else somewhere in the world read this just 14 minutes ago and it makes me wonder how they found it was uploaded.
I just brushed my teeth and made my webcomics rounds and found this, 15 or so minutes, that means that I started just as soon as brashieel finished.
odd

Wow.. That’s really the only thing that seems to cover this strip.. Wow.
You have a really beautiful drawing style and some of the most fantastic stories in the comics, after i’ve read one i just spend a little time just.. feeling the story.

I eagerly look forward to each months comic, This one is a gem! When these are combined into an omnibus book I will most assuredly by MANY copies. Thank you for all the thought provoking work, I love the places your mind wanders to!

Not a reply just a shameless blurb for the author, I bought my first poster recently #112 “a webcomic” with Shamus And Lara Croft. This has been a longtime favorite of mine. The posters are fantastic, and just having it up in my house has gotten other people reading the archives rabidly. Is there any chance of clothing? Many e-stores print on demand, and I would love a sphinx hoody or tee-shirt.

Thank you! I Stumbleupon’ed you about a year ago and have always come back. Your comic’s are thought provoking, funny when needed, and always have a nugget of truth and hope to them. I love your comic strips, keep up the great work!

How can you say that? It’s always been metaphysical ramblings….the aliens, the time travelers, the rich man who we thought was a homeless man, all of it random musings about life, the universe, and everything.

You can fit a better story in one webcomic than hollywood does in an entire movie. Just to let you know, if I ever see a movie (or graphic novel, or anything really) written by Winston Rowntree, I’m buying it. You’ve seriously earned yourself a lifelong patron (albeit one who’s broke at the moment).

Awesome Winston, thanks for a great comic. Love the little touches that don’t seem much but have an impact. The guy’s blackened eyes give him anonomity, the shape of the panels is the logo of the book/recurring motif, etc…

The story reminded me of ‘The End of Eternity’ by Isaac Asimov. It’s exactly this : a guy is sent in the past to seed it so his own world exists in the first place. The eternal loop, ecetera.

Really powerful comic. Although, yes, as others have said previously it is a bit predictable around the first quarter, but then again it’s the same with Ki-duk Kim films which doesn’t make it any less beautiful or emotional. Nobody could explain it before, but I think I now understand why they say that the story is not important, but how you tell it.

Like everyone else, I want to say welcome back and yes, truly, this was a beautiful story.

I also figured out the ‘twist’ about halfway but… I thought that the twist was going to be that the ‘hero’ had been sent back to create and then become a mythical prophet, thereby either creating monetheistic religion, or a particular monetheistic religion.

With that accomplished, a future world in which populations could be controlled and divided at will would remain. The generals and politicians would have their global conformity and perpetual war for all time. The world that had been, where people welcomed innovation and difference, fades away.

The moral of the story being that even the most dedicated champions of good can be used for evil if they cannot tell the difference between good and evil.

“And if ideas ever cross the hills and are so persistent as to transcend the ages then they are the ideas of mankind”

Amazingly beautifully written & drawn. In essence, the story seems to be based on a well-known thought, a thought that is at least worth everybods consideration for a moment: If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

As soon as I read a couple panels in, I was like “This guy is gonna time travel and accidently become his own religious figure.” But then, I’ve always been pretty good at predictiing twists like that… lmao.

Poster schmoster, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itasha (in fairness, I was thinking first of the pillow slipcovers over the seats with characters on them; though feel free to punt democracy-size pillows; and it’s not like sun shades or rechargers are gonna be out this year) or POV microprojection (nevermind the biker, read the trail off the panniers!)

Way to set up a MacGuffin, Rowntree. Clearly team 2 overshoots almost doubly to bury their payload of turned citations and missed tellings deeper, only to see alluvial migration fold people and tales deeper up under each others’ gloves.

i really appreciate what you did with color over the course of the comic, as it shifted with time. very effective (especially as he first entered the past, with the yellow on blue)… subtly moving the reader back into that state of yellow. the solid block of yellow panels was so moving. perfect. and then, orange. lovely. it reminded me a bit of nietzsche, when he’s comforting.

also:
the shape of the panels was really brilliant, really subtle. i loved it. it was such a happy surprise for the reader, reinforcing the idea of his life as constituting his book…

The causality paradox time travel story has been done before, of course, but I like your idea of treating a man as a seed and the past as soil. It’s almost like he’s Patient Zero of a benign pandemic.

I love the use of color. He comes from a gold future and lands in a blue past. As the the years pass, he’s completely oblivious to the way that the world is becoming less blue and more gold. When he runs from the book, his village is just as gold as his future. And then he takes it farther than when he was an ignorant man in the future. He looks at his wife and the the world becomes red. This woman was originally a beard he took to maintain his cover. Now he knew her to be an angel; if our holy books are written by men who weren’t even trying, then we’ve been living in Heaven all along.

Another amazing comic, and a wonderful picture of humanity. Your comix may be wordier than most, but even so each piece is laden with meaning. Your art ought to be used as a textbook. Here in India the number of textbooks using loads of words with no apparent meaning and with no ending in sight is Too Damn High ! ( My exams are coming)
Thank you, Winston. Thanks for taking the time to craft this amazing story for us. Above all, thanks for coming back.

I’m sorry, but I’ve been reading through your comic archive for the last week. Each panel has given me something to think about. Every character is someone that I can relate with in some obscure, self-revelatory way. You metaphors, your technique–they never fail to grip me. And this last one–I just couldn’t stop seeing the implications and the subtleties and how you managed t string them all together.

You, my friend, are brilliant. And it is to my great sadness that my reading your work has ended for the moment, but it is also my great hope that you will continue to make these beautiful tomes of human thought.

I have never bothered to comment before, but, I have to voice exactly how beautiful this story was. No, not the story, but, the piece as a whole, it’s transcended it’s web-comix origins into true art. This should be in a museum, or sprawled across a brick wall as a mural.Kudos from me to you, and thank you for putting something wonderful into our world.

.
Of course. The shift in colours. Very observant of you -Tomas Inguanzo-! (6 posts north). “Patient Zero” has probably been infected with Malus domestica, which SOUNDS… malignant sooner than benign though.
And, to be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that evil-looking woman is involved somehow. Apple pie?

I know you may not read this, for it is one among many. Your work humbles me. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, but most importantly, it makes me ask questions. Sometimes the questions don’t make sense, and sometimes the people I ask don’t make sense, and sometimes the answers don’t make sense, but few questions and people and answers ever make sense. I am a simple poet, barely an adult, trying to find a way in this world, but every time I sit, for 20, 30 minutes at a time to read your most recent work, I am inspired to keep living until I find a purpose. I thank you for the teachings you have spared.

I used to and sometimes still psychoanalyze everything. Over the past year, I’ve shifted out of that frustrating loop of thought and learned to let go. Your comics offer a profound experience and I am eternally grateful for the work you’ve done and will continue to do. Thank you so much! Rock the fuck on!

I’ve liked your comics for some time now, usually though they’re a little to verbose for my attention span to let me read fully (put it this way, when I read a book I tend to skim, absorbing the crux of the message without reading all the words), but this, this I went back and re-read just to make sure I had actually absorbed every single word. Thank you for writing it so well that I had to go back and make sure I had everything committed.

Hey Winston, now that you’ve done a lot of comix, have you thought about having a thumbnail system to make it easier to browse the comics. It would make it a ton easier to find a comic I’m looking to read

Not rude! Ask me Whatever. Why not at tcaf? Not a huge fan of shows, essentially. I used to do shows back when i was selling $2.00 ‘zines instead of having a website and i just never really enjoyed the experience. As an introvert, it’s frankly exhausting (i’m good for about two hours in A Massive Room Full of Strangers), and financially it’s just pointless– i could sell literally a hundred zines and that would be breaking even. Even if i had something to sell right now (my Stuff You Can Buy is all handled third-party) i wouldn’t feel like gambling on covering the cost of the table. Plus i have comix to make.

And, again, shows are exhausting. I make comix because i like being alone in a room, y’know? I’m not saying i’ll never ever do a comix show ever again ever, i’m just really not into it. I do have an idea for a Toronto-specific comic that would make a nice poster, maybe get a bunch printed and sell them anonymously at Canzine (actually affordable tables), but that’s the closest thing i have to future plans in terms of shows.

After your last comic came out in February, I was checking the site every week for new comics, like I usually do. Then after a couple misses it became every other week. Then every month. I had about decided to start a search and rescue party. But my, this was breath-taking, and 110% worth it. I want to go on praising everything I loved about it, but after reading the comments, I see that’s been covered several times over. So instead, I’ll just say thank you. Thank you for this amazing thing, this incredible little bit of humanity you’ve taken the time to create and share.

This is the first comic of yours that I have read (after a link to “The Atheist Apocalypse”). I found it gripping from the start and enjoyed it a lot. I suppose the question is, where did this loop in time begin? Thought provoking, whatever the answer may be🙂

Very well written and eloquent (as I have come to expect from this fine comic). Though I guessed the Jesus metaphor/Terminator time-loop quite early into the story – as soon as he decided to “go native”.

Fantastic. While the “twist” was hardly surprising (having anticipated almost as soon as time travel was mentioned,) the delivery was surprisingly, phenomenally, well done. Thank you for the pleasure of reading it.

And because I haven’t said so yet, thank you for making me read so many other words these past few years. They’ve been full of profound truths and beauty, and they’ve gotten me through many a time when the world seemed utterly bleak.

Hey, the way I see it, we’re each a sole occupant of a richly beautiful island, but we’re usually limited to standing on our beaches and waving to each other from afar. You actually wade out into the waves and see how much closer you can get. Again, thank you.

Sublime. I enjoy masters of Sci-Fi like Frank Herbert and Aurthur C Clark. The scope, ease in which the ideas are communicated and the mastery of story telling is on par with them. I cannot describe the joy and wonder I feel reading this. Well told stories like these help us mundane people break free the shackles of mediocrity in day to day life.